Conor McGregor is a lot of things—like the reigning UFC lightweight champion, one of Time’s most influential people, and an all-star trash-talker, for starters.
One thing he isn’t, however, is a movie star. Yet.
Guy Ritchie—who directed the recently released King Arthur: Legend of the Sword—said that not only did he try to get the UFC king to accept a role in the medieval action flick, without success, he also drew inspiration for the film’s fight scenes from actual footage of McGregor in the ring.
“Preparing for the action scenes [in King Arthur], we watched a lot of McGregor fight footage because his style was what we were after,” Ritchie said. “That very intense, singular, lightning-fast, juggernaut trademark technique was perfect, and we modelled Arthur’s physicality on that.”
The English filmmaker even went so far as to draw a comparison between McGregor and Jason Statham, who Ritchie describes as “an athlete, completely on his game all the time,” and went on to add that “you can see that similarity in Conor, he could clean up in Hollywood.”
